Wow, I always shied away from academics for similar reasons you mentioned, but I just realized that my main hobby, game development, parallels what you say a lot (and creative hobbies in general, including writing).

"You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some meaningful game with little encouragement in the meantime...sometimes even after you release a game that took a lot out of you, it may take many years before people appreciate, let alone play, your game, and the vast majority of games aren't going to be played." "To compensate for this you basically play the popularity game and give as many interviews and talk up your game when you meet people, so there's a lot of salesmanship involved there as well."

"The career path is so twisted you have to either be insanely good or just hate yourself enough to sacrifice your best years working essentially in the metaphorical darkness well outside the spotlight and most likely alone and poorly paid." <- My experience working in the game industry, except I wasn't completely alone, I did have coworkers. However I did feel like I never had time for a relationship.